iPhone Five Is Alive. Is It?

I've had a run of bad luck starting from losing my phone. They say bad things come in threes. It felt like it was getting close to five or six. (Even with all my updates of posts, I didn't mention the 750g of meat I left out overnight. I did give them to the seven or so stray cats in the carpark of my apartment though).

Anyway I'm thinking positive. I ditched Facebook for a start. I got sick of the political issues, the whinging of needy people, the food pictures, and the so-called privacy issues Facebook couldn't care less about. 

I watched this video. While parodying the mythical iPhone 5, I think it also sums up the general feeling of Facebook itself. I'm going to miss my Italian friends. Sorry guys.

When I bought my replacement phone, I did have in mind to update eventually to the new iPhone 5. I, along with probably the rest of the world followed all the leaked pictures with religious fervour to find out what it was going to have and look like.

The early news was not so good. Oh, a nano SIM card. So somehow I'm going to have to work out how to cut my prepay into one of these. Fantastic. And, a new proprietary dock connector to deal with. It's not so long ago I bought my nice Apogee Jam guitar iPhone interface. Thanks Apple!

Today I had a chance to have a look at one in the flesh, so to speak. Even though it was raining, there weren't many people in the Softbank store, and it was easy to play with it.

The four inch screen is such an subtle screen update. It still does NOT feel much bigger than the 4S. Being thinner is nice, but it lacks that certain WOW factor I want. If Apple made it at least the 4.8" size of the Galaxy S3, I would have let Apple have my baby, and do what they want with me. This just makes me annoyed. No doubt I'm sure Apple will make the "real" size a feature, when they release their best phone yet in a year or two, or five from now.

While functional, the UI needs an update. It looks boring. I was very curious how Apple was going to handle their own maps. In 3D it sounded awesome. In reality it doesn't have the polish of Google Maps, and Street View is not here. Hello Bueller?

I've lost count of how many times Street View made finding a street SO much easier to locate, especially here in Tokyo.

I've been looking at the S3 and even the Galaxy Note. While I'm used to the iPhone interface, I am loving the bigger screen. Android is very close to the iPhone experience now. The forthcoming Note 2 looks to be amazing. The way Apple is doing things, there's a pretty good chance Samsung is going to take my money this time.

It hurts to say that. If I forgo the Galaxy phones, I'd rather pick up the 4S for compatibility to what I have, than the iPhone 5. I even prefer how the metal band goes around the phone. That's if I can get over that screen size.

Apple's suing of Samsung to me shows that they are threatened by the popularity of the Android phones. Instead of doing that why don't they give the people what they want? Please?

Yoshi's Semi Acoustic

It looks like my beach days are over this year. It rained for about five minutes. We took our umbrellas and caught the train, but it was to be the last rain of the whole day. It seems like this is the way it is. Forget your umbrella, you're screwed. I HATE carrying an umbrella for no reason.

Today's plan was to go to Ebisu to check out two exhibitions, Sound & Vision (Masayoshi Sukita), and Light of Dreams (Akihide Tamura), at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Both exhibitions were pretty interesting. Sound & Vision had some very cool rock photography. Quite a lot of David Bowie. I didn't know he had something unusual with his eyes before. Akihide's photography had a lot of locations around Tokyo and Yokohama, with earlier shots of the construction of the Yokohama Bay Bridge, Rainbow Bridge, and the pre-Minato Mirai.

After Ebisu we decided to walk to Shibuya.

I found a Yoshi that will go well in my Super Mario plushie collection, as well as a semi-acoustic guitar. I know yes, ANOTHER guitar. Inspired by Heth and Jed in New York, I was thinking of getting a pickup for my acoustic, but the price of a built-in preamp WITH a guitar was too hard to pass up.

Now that the weather is due to turn cooler, and the beach days over, I'm thinking of my park picnic drinking, and it's going to be a good opportunity to finally get that amp, and stomp boxes out there! Carrying the guitar on my shoulder if going to be much better too.

So, my other steel string guitar is up for sale. If anyone is looking for a cheap acoustic guitar, post me a comment. I'll keep it anonymous if you want to leave a return email. I'll throw in the hard case as well.

Tooth Hurty

It was just another night. You know making a pizza, eating it, then finding a hard, small stone in your mouth after finishing the last bite. I didn't remember adding anything like this to my secret recipe?

A piece of my tooth had broken off.

Before this happened, I noticed that if I bit on the left side of my mouth, I felt the slightest jolt of pain. Touching the teeth there was nothing, so I couldn't exactly locate which tooth it was.

It was before I came to Japan that I last saw a dentist. Yeah I know, bad, bad me. If it isn't scary enough seeing a dentist in your native country, imagine how bad it could be in Japan?

Like I said in a previous post, it's HIGHLY advisable to find an English speaking doctor before you get sick. And so too, a dentist is a very good idea as well.

As my never-ending "luck" would have it, this happened on Friday night. I thought finding a dentist on a Saturday would be close to impossible. The following Monday was a public holiday, and I didn't feel comfortable to wait till Tuesday. Fortunately there was a fluent English speaking dentist available for an appointment at 430pm.

Only problem was I finished work at 415pm, and making my way from Tokyo station would be a challenge. I didn't have any students from 350pm, so I asked if I could leave a little earlier to make my appointment on time.

Instead of making it a simple, "ok, go ahead, get better soon", it was such a difficult task. They HAD to call HQ, no one "in charge" was available. Instead of an easy executive decision, I was questioned relentlessly so much that by the time I got off the phone it was my normal punch-out time. What a runaround!  Only in f*ing Japan!

Anyway, enough of the that rant for the time being..

Dental clinics in Japan are a little unusual in that they usually see more than one patient at a time. Here, there were three chairs in close proximity. Although in the same room, no-one faces one another. Luckily no one was screaming in pain while I was there.

The head dentist was the only one that could speak English, but I didn't have too much trouble. When it needed explaining he told me what was going on. They even let me hold two mirrors to see what was the problem. Nice.

For an X-ray, a filling and a little clean, it cost about 3,700 yen. A follow-up appointment cost 550 yen. Pretty good!  The dentist is covered by my National Health Insurance, so it's a rare moment that I am very thankful for having it.

He did ask me to recommend him to my friends, so if you're living in Tokyo, it's Yamaguchi Dental in Yotsuya. Their address is , 東京都新宿区四谷1-5 東交ビル3Ｆ(put the address in Google Maps), and their phone number is 03-3358-0894.

Keep um, smiling!

Jellyfish Kiss

I loved going to the beach last summer. The last time I went last year was Sept 16th. I made a conscious decision that this year I would go as often as possible. I lost count, but it was about fourteen or fifteen times.

The weather had been great and there was always plenty of eye candy on the beach. Once it reached the end of August though, and the end of the summer holidays there were far fewer people on the beach, and it was much easier to find a private plot of sand to assemble my blue tarp. (Although this didn't stop a Japanese guy from sitting down within two metres of me).

The last time I went was the 12th of September. It was humid and hot in Tokyo, so another dip in the Japan Sea was still inviting. It was quite sad to watch them pull the beach huts down. It felt like the end of Summer was here.

Nevertheless  it was relaxing. I arrived at 1pm. I quickly went into the water, and alternated between drinking a chu-hi and eating, then getting back in again. By 5 or 6pm I had two and a half chu-his. I felt hot, so I thought I'd jump in once more.

So.. with my gung-ho intoxication, I leapt through the water, and dived head and arms first into the water. And then it hit me. As soon as I went under the water I felt a warm, tingling sensation.

It was a familiar sting. The only thing was it was on my face, and all over the whole torso of my body. I had dived into the path of jellyfish. I quickly got out of the water, and went to the toliet block. My body had distinctly red rashes, and what looked like a tentacle welt line running down both sides of my face down to the middle of my chest. Mostly it looked and felt like sunburn.

I was cursing my bad luck sitting on the tarp. Feeling sorry for myself I drank the rest of my chuhi before leaving. I guess I should be mildly thankful. The jellyfish in Australia are much more deadly. IF the same thing happened I'd most likely have been screaming in agony.

The next morning when I woke up, I felt my right eye was heavy. Overnight it had become swollen enough that I could only keep that eye have open. I guess it was time to see the doctor.

My doctor said, "You know it's jellyfish season?" Of course I knew. I had little stings before and made nothing about them. If I didn't go into the water so quickly, I think I'd have avoided this.

It only cost 1,100 yen for the appointment, and 790 yen for the creams and allergy tablets he prescribed. In a week, my face looks normal, and the rashes have subsided. If the weather had not turned rainy in the days after, I'd even have attempted to go to the beach one last time.

Want to see an example of what a jellyfish kiss looks like? Here you go!

Summer F*ing Sonic

I really don't like how they organise this festival.

You see all the bands on the poster and think, how cool the lineup, and the sheer number of bands on the schedule. Creativeman or better put, UNcreativeman, should get a big hard, violent pat on the back for making the days as unpleasant as possible.

Where do I start?

This year like every year (yes I went last year, but I was too exhausted/peeved to write about it), they have a LOT of overlap between the bands. There is no way to catch the full sets of the bands. Either leave early, or miss the beginning of the next band's performance.

The staff also make it extremely difficult to get to the next stage, quickly moving the entrance and exits to as far as they can to give you good practice for next year's marathon. In the end I ignored them and went in the exits anyway.

The photo nazi security made it difficult to take photos, but I managed to capture a few choice band moments of the festival.

I've heard Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know" everywhere in Tokyo, even in the supermarket. This performance was definitely one of the best of the day. He also speaks fluent Japanese. Who knew?

Nelly Furtado was another act I was looking forward to. The guitar initially sounded a bit fizzy, but improved later on. A couple of songs I would've liked to have heard but a good show!

As you can see, pretty far away watching Green Day's long two hour set. They've got a large repertoire, and fit the stadium well. Great interaction with the audience. 

When I think of Sigur Ros, it's hard not to use words like "ethereal". Listening to them live, I felt like it was putting me to sleep, but in a good way. Sweet Icelandic lullabies for sure.

Perfume's fans are totally nuts. While I got reasonably close, the amount of pushing was pretty insane. Bit dangerous. Amazing for a group that I'm sure do a whole lot of miming. Nice eye candy. Interesting to hear them REALLY sing, Seiko's "Fresh".

I had high expectations from the Cardigans. Gran Turismo was a favourite CD, but it was a slow-paced set. Nina's looking a bit frumpy here, and her voice sounded a bit drained. "Love Fool" and "My Favorite Game" peaked my interest.

Garbage were truly back in form tonight. A powerful set. Definitely in the top performances of Summersonic. Unfortunately had to leave early. F*** you Creativeman, honestly F*** YOU!

Now this is going BACK. I grew up with Tears For Fears. A fantastic performance. You wouldn't know this band originated way back in the 80s. I never knew Roland did the falsetto in "Seeds of Love". Wow. Funny to see the audience of oldies getting down here.

If I had a choice I'd rather see these bands on their own tours. Unfortunately this is often my only way of seeing them when they come to Japan. Such a shame.

Lost My iPhone :(

In my haste of rushing to get food to go to the beach, it fell out of my pocket. I wanted to blame H & M, or their sweatshop in Bangladesh for making my short pockets only an inch deep.

I realized as soon as I got home it was missing. I backtracked over and over. I tried calling, but there was no reception at all. It was either broken or "lost".

I went to the police box to report it, but two weeks later, I hadn't heard back. So much for the wonderful police service and the good samaritan citizens. I found that Facebook had been accessed on the 28th, so now I can likely say that it was now, not only lost but stolen.

I hadn't password locked my phone. I changed all my passwords. In hindsight I wished I had installed a GPS program to locate it, but having said that I didn't always have location services on all the time anyway.

After a few days I was thinking it wasn't going to come back to me. I called Softbank to see what they could do. They couldn't trace the phone, and being a prepay they didn't make it easy to get a replacement.

To keep my phone number and email, a replacement SIM costs about 2,000 yen. BUT, they wouldn't be able to give me a phone to go with it?! I could get a new phone number with a prepay phone though. I was considering doing that, but I still had a month left on my old SIM, and about 16,000 yen of credit. I went to Akihabara and picked up a cheap Samsung secondhand for 4,000 yen.

Initially it was hard to go back to a non-smartphone (dumb phone?), but I figured this will do, especially as the iPhone 5 was going to be out soon. Overall it's not a bad phone. I'm missing the GPS , and camera. But hey, the battery lasts about five days! The lack of predictive text is REALLY killing me though.

I still miss my iPhone. The phone has a white carbon-fibre sticker back with a black Apple logo. If you know of someone who took the phone, punch them in the face for me, or tell them to 'fess up and return it. It was a hassle and a lot of money to get it :(

Cup Noodles Museum

After a failed attempt of coming here back when we went ice skating, I found some discount tickets so we couldn't pass it up.. or could we?

The title is not a misprint. Japanese often get plurals messed up as it is, but when they're used for describing things, things don't look much better eg. bicycles parking.

I don't know why I had high expectations. Basically it's like a shrine to the memory of the founder of Cup Noodles, Momofuku Ando. There is a room where I did see the Chin noodles, the first "food" I bought on my arrival in Japan WAY back in 2007. Wow nostalgia!

The entry is (usually) 500 yen. The highlight of the place is the chance to make your own Cup Noodle um, cup (300 yen). Well, sort of.

You get a cup, decorate it with markers. You choose one base flavour (I chose curry, but I wanted to get curry AND tomato. No dice). Then you get to choose four additives.

After that it gets sealed and vacuum-packed, and then you put it in a blowup cushion bag for protection, or probably to advertise the place on your travels home.

Not highly recommended to come here, but if you were always wondering about the origins of instant noodles this is your place. I have to say though Ando's philosophy of creative thinking I should take on board, if I weren't so goddamn lazy.

This wasn't the only reason to come to Yokohama. Oh no, of course not. It also happened to be the time of the Summer fireworks. I love them fireworks. I think we found a better area than in the past.

 As usual people had "reserved" their places with tarps, but we did find a nice place for a good view, and a steady place to rest my tripod. I brought along my GH1, along with my fisheye and 200mm zoom.

I like coming to Yokohama, and Minato Mirai is a great place for a short day trip from Tokyo. I'm planning to go to one more fireworks show again in Kita Senju soon.